


unrecognizable, unknowable

by ghoulfuckery (PomTheHobbit)



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Body Image, Character Study, Gen, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 14:19:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16788646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PomTheHobbit/pseuds/ghoulfuckery
Summary: The dark hair lays flattened against her shin, stark against her ashen vault-sheltered skin. Like a child, almost, Nora runs a palm up her leg, feeling the hairs being pushed up the wrong way. It feels strange, unfamiliar. Alien.





	unrecognizable, unknowable

**Author's Note:**

> quick note-- this does deal with body image issues, and internalized sexism, as well as fatphobia.

**i.**

It comes as an almost comical shock to her when she takes off her vault suit for the first time and her leg hair has grown back. It makes sense, and by all means, it should be there, but yet. It’s been so long since she’s seen it. 

The dark hair lays flattened against her shin, stark against her ashen vault-sheltered skin. Like a child, almost, Nora runs a palm up her leg, feeling the hairs being pushed up the wrong way. It feels strange, unfamiliar. Alien. She can remember being eleven, twelve, the hairs coming in, and being burningly ashamed of it. Girls weren’t supposed to be hairy. They were soft and smooth, hairless. Delicate.

She had cried until her mother had let her use a razor. There was still a small scar on her ankle from where the razor had nicked it. The blood had swirled down the drain and Nora, small, and fragile Nora, had felt an almost sick satisfaction.

Now she stares at her leg, almost uncomprehending. It doesn’t really matter anymore, she supposes, but a small part of her, the part that had made her sob when the wispy hairs grew in, says that she needs to do anything to get them off, pull them out one by one, until her legs are bleeding but smooth. A woman isn’t hairy, not like a man. It’s disgusting, ashaming. Slovenly.

Nora yanks the rest of her suit off, and wades into the freezing river. She doesn’t think about it anymore, the cold water pulling her thoughts away.

**ii.**

The thoughts never leave.

They push and pull, tug at her brain.

She sees her face in a broken and dusty mirror when she finds shelter from a radstorm. The shadows are dark, the harsh light from the pipboy gleaming ang glowing off of the silver surface. Her eyebrows, always perfectly shaped, are scraggly now, filling in. Dark hairs shadow her upper lip, her chin. Wrinkles she had dreaded to see, creasing her forehead, spiderweb out from the corners of her eyes.

More details come at her, clawing and scraping her emotions, leaving Nora to feel raw, as the little insidious part of her takes notes, and shows her, tells her, unending and unceasing.

Her eyes, too small without carefully drawn liner. Cracked and dry lips, no longer soft. And her hair, her hair that she would get done like clockwork, shows the dark roots. Nora doesn’t recognize the woman in the mirror. She reaches out, smudges the dirt with a thumb. The woman does the same. Her expression is harsh, unfeminine. Unrecognizable.

Nora stares, and traces the woman’s face in the mirror, outlining sharp cheekbones, a jaw not quite angular, and a forehead that seems too big with her hair pulled back.

Tired eyes stare back, purple bruises made even darker by the gloom and unforgiving light of the pipboy.

Slumping down, Nora rests her head against the drawer that the mirror sits on, and she closes her eyes. The woman remains in her eyelids, staring, silent. Asking for an answer.

There is none to give.

**iii.**

Nora looks at the way her stomach sits, and fights back the urge to curl, to hunch over. She’s never been thin, never been the selvelte that the mannequins in the store had been. Her hips too wide, stomach too soft, chest too large.

As she fights to survive in an environment that no one should be in, she’s far from the soft thing she was before. The fat is still there, as it always has been. But now, now muscle sits with it. Her thighs, fit from endless walking, would have made her friends titter. She’s never been small, and she thinks, she knows, that she’ll never be.

It’s early, the dawn light watery, and Nora wakes up, an familiar tension in-between her legs. The night before had brought soft dreams, touches she hasn’t felt in months. She is alone, and in the weak dawn light, she slides a hand between her legs. She runs a thumb on the inside of her thigh, and then.

She pauses.

Pulling the blanket down, her pants down, Nora can see angry red stretch marks, things she thought faded since the birth of her son, creeping around her legs. They tear her stomach, her thighs, her knees, nowhere safe. Her thumb rubs over one, slipping slightly into the indent. It mocks her, bright and brazen on her skin.

She curls into the blanket again, until the sun beats heavy in the sky.

She doesn’t try to touch herself again.

**iv.**

Nora sits, uncomprehending.

Piper says something, something kind and soft, but Nora can only look numbly at her hands, rough and calloused. It had been an unlucky shot. A molotov hurled by a supermutant, missing most of her, catching her hair and side of her face. Dimly, Nora realizes that she should be thankful, that it was only the side of her face, and not her organs.

But all she can think of, the only thing, is how she must be unrecognizable to Nate now.

Not that it matters, he’s dead. He’s been dead for so long, she’s almost forgotten the days. And she thinks, now, for the first time, maybe Nora is dead too. Not her, not the Nora now. But the Nora who stayed up every night carefully applying salves and creams. The Nora who could do her lipstick without looking, who could run in heels. Who shaved everyday, and fretted over the arch of her brows.

Nora watches as Piper carefully cuts the remaining hair off, watches the burnt ends fall to the ground. Privately, she mourns. The last of who she was, of that life falls to the ground in wisps. She remembers, in a distant sort of way, how Nate would run his hands through it, and would kiss her hairline. How it lay around her after giving birth, sweaty and tangled.

She doesn’t know what she’s feeling when Piper steps away, and how much lighter her head is when she stands. It’s no longer mourning, Nora thinks.

Acceptance, maybe.

**v.**

The angry shrill voice in her head is still there. It still squalls when Nora runs a hand over her choppy hair. It claws and tears when she sees the hair on her underarms. She still cares, still feels that gut roiling feeling of shame. But it’s better now.

The woman in the mirror isn’t a stranger, not anymore. She’s not completely familiar with her either, and Nora wonders if she’ll ever be.

Running a hand down her face, down her chest, her waist, Nora thinks

_yes._

**Author's Note:**

> fallout 4 fics in 2018? it's more likely than you think


End file.
